As my boyfriend Chris and I were walking down the stairs to the subway train platform to head to Sunday morning service at Riverside Church, I spotted it. That unmistakable fire engine red, poorly designed, ill-fitting cap that has become an emblem for all things sexist, racist, xenophobic, and anti-Muslim.

New York, NY—Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE) announced today that it is launching a nationwide effort to oppose the Trump Administration’s proposed erasure of LGBT elders from the National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants (NSOAAP).

The wood table on which my laptop sits is true. It’s an immutable fact to which there is no alternative. If you claimed as fact that it is made of vapor, you would still knock your shin when you tried to walk through it.

Originally published in December 2015, this post has particular resonance this week following President Donald Trump's Executive Order to restrict immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.

I arrived at Creating Change, the annual winter gathering of LGBTQ and ally activists organized by The National LGBTQ Taskforce, feeling broken and frightened. I worked hard for Hillary and felt shattered by the election. Every Donald Trump cabinet appointment since then confirmed my fears of coming harm to so many. And now he is President; the Congress is in the hands of the Tea Party.